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# Socials
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/socials/
- Published: 2026-04-14T20:58:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:09:38.000Z
- Description: “Socials,” an onion of a reflection on social media, the algo, and our concurrent entrapment and complicity. Written April 14, poem 104 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Strolling and Scrolling," by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Dry Humor, Generational, Poems, Rants, Additction, AI, Algorithm, April, Automation, Behaviors, Cultivate, Curate, Film, Good, Husband, Integrity, manipulations, NASA, Office, Reels, Scrolling, Sentiments, Social Media, Socials, Splashdown, The Algo, The Social Dilemma, Treadmill, Virtuous, Work, Workout, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

I’m watching   
*The Social Dilemma*.  
I'm on my treadmill.  
I'm squeezing in my  
pre-work morning’s walk.  
  
I’m strolling and scrolling  
now, so that I can handle   
being immobile, desk-side  
for nine to ten hours.  
  
I’m twenty minutes   
into the film   
and I feel like  
the interview subjects   
feel *familiar.*   
Déjà vu.  
  
And then I realize...  
I must have watched this  
with my husband,   
six years ago upon release.  
  
And I have no memory of it.  
Because I likely watched  
the movie while scrolling.  
I failed to convert my experience  
into crystallized memory.  
  
And now this time,   
while walking and watching,  
I realize I am also scrolling.  
I had felt virtuous,   
trying to keep up  
with all the reels   
that NASA is dropping.  
  
But here I am again,   
entangled in the system.  
The very one of which  
the documentary warns us.  
  
We are the product.  
We are the experiment.  
We are the ones caught  
in the vice,   
while having a vice.  
  
It's so....meta.  
And as we know, but  
don't really *know*\-know:  
Social media   
was designed for this.  
  
And I've gotten better, really.  
I barely go to Facebook.  
I don't provide content  
on Instagram.  
  
I've become leery   
of sharing faces.  
I avoid disclosing my  
locations in real-time.  
  
I haven't seen Twitter   
since it was a bluebird, chirping.  
I never had a TikTok.  
I've not even one post go viral.  
  
But it's so easy   
to slip back into its clutches.  
Into the brain-rewarding   
comfort and thrill  
of instant entertainment.  
  
And I am self-aware enough  
to admit that it stings,  
on the rare times I do post.  
  
Because I see zero engagement.  
I sense my content is buried   
by a punishing algorithm  
that has already calculated  
and culled me from the feed.  
  
I have tried, iteratively,  
to break free.  
And now I'm on some   
sort of shadow-shunning list,   
proof both that my limits  
are effective — and that,  
embarrassingly, *I still care.*  
  
Leveraging algorithms  
and AI   
in the pursuit of  
Good.  
  
This is what we need to crack.  
As we automate our work  
and smooth out our networks  
and cultivate, curate our socials,  
we need to seek a common truth.  
  
We need to opt out   
of the ceaseless manipulations,  
the imperceptible changing of  
our behaviors and sentiments.  
  
But first, look at your account.  
I forwarded you  
the most mind-blowing video  
of NASA Integrity's April 10th  
Splashdown at 10x speed.  
*You're gonna love it!*